Lucy hadn’t been a wild teenager, but looking back it was probably a miracle that they’d all come through their youth as unscathed as they had. One bad decision and it all could have turned out very different.

  Glancing out the front window, she could see Zack talking on the phone, pacing up and down the sidewalk. His expression was dark, his jaw tight and grim. He wasn’t having a pleasant conversation with Finn in the least. The call was clearly escalating, Zack’s face red and angry.

  And…shocked? Scared?

  Lucy didn’t recognize the emotion, but he was in distress. One thing she’d learned about him was that he was a private person. Later he wouldn’t be happy that he’d given the town anything to gossip about. He was too upset to think about that now, but he would at some point.

  It was time to pay the check and get Zack off the public sidewalk, and to somewhere he could have a glass of wine and calm down.

  She didn’t know what had happened, but something was not right. At all.

  14

  Clutching a piece of paper in his right hand, Cooper didn’t bother to knock on the door of his family home, simply pushing it open and striding to his father’s office. He knew good and well where Joel Winslow would be in the after-dinner hours. His father was nothing if not predictable.

  I should have seen this one coming a mile away.

  The interior of the house had changed since the last time he’d been inside almost six years ago. It looked like Auntie Kim had made an imprint there with all the touches of purple - her favorite color. His mom’s had been yellow.

  He didn’t knock on the study door either, flinging it open to see his dad sitting behind the large, dark oak desk. When Cooper had been a kid he’d been a little bit afraid of it. His father hadn’t let any of the children within three feet of it, not wanting it to be scratched or damaged. Lily would roll her eyes and shoo the kids back into the rest of the house.

  “Son,” Joel said, his expression neutral. “This is a surprise.”

  “Not a pleasant one,” Cooper shot back, tossing the single sheet of paper he’d been carrying on the surface of the desk. “I think it might be time for you to tell the truth. For once in your pathetic life.”

  Joel looked at Cooper and then down at the paper before picking it up, perusing the contents. Cooper watched closely for any tell-tale sign of a reaction but the most he got was the tightening of Joel’s jaw.

  That’s it. His dad was one stone cold son of a bitch. Even now he didn’t give a shit.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Does it matter? This is Winslow Heights. Everyone in town is going to know by breakfast tomorrow morning.”

  Cooper had a friend - a former lady friend - in the sheriff’s office. It was from that person that he’d received this lovely bit of news.

  And everyone would know. This wasn’t going to be swept under the rug, although Joel probably wished it would. It was such juicy gossip even Joel Winslow couldn’t pay for it to be kept under wraps.

  Joel levered up from his chair and walked over to the window that looked over the backyard, seeming to think of something to say. Maybe he was thinking of a lie to make himself look better.

  “Son, every marriage has its issues—”

  “Stop,” Cooper commanded. “Just cut the bullshit. Sarah Adams was your daughter. Our half-sister. They found Lloyd Daniels, and he made a statement to the police. He said that you’re the father of Sarah Adams. You fucked Sarah’s mom and got her pregnant. Then spent the last thirty-six years hiding it. You can’t hide it now.”

  For a moment, Cooper thought that his father was going to deny it, saying that Lloyd Daniels was a liar. But apparently he’d remembered that DNA testing was a thing and that science existed. It could be proven.

  “As I said, I’ve made some mistakes. I have regrets.”

  “Regrets,” Cooper echoed. The audacity of his father never ceased to amaze him. “Regrets? That’s a piss-poor word for what any actual human being would be feeling. Your daughter disappeared and has now been found. Possibly foul play was involved, but clearly you don’t give a shit. I guess she was just practice for Mom, right? You’d already been through it once, so when it happened again it was no big deal? Just another day at the office for the great Joel Winslow. Did you pay her mom off? That sounds like something you’d do.”

  “You don’t understand at all.” Joel turned back toward the window. “Does Zack know?”

  “Christ, I don’t know. Probably. Is that all you care about? Whether your perfect firstborn son knows you’re an asshole? Newsflash, he already knows.”

  “I’ve made some decisions that may not have been right when I look back on it. But I did the best I could at the time.”

  “You don’t even know what that means. Two females in your life have seemingly disappeared. Wow, that’s some terrible luck for you. What are the odds of it happening to a single person, I wonder? It has to be astronomical. I mean, do coincidences happen like that? Two women who were in your way are gone. How…convenient for you.”

  Cooper had hit a mark. His father’s eyes narrowed and that stony expression grew even colder, his face a granite mask of disdain.

  “Just what are you insinuating?”

  “I’m not insinuating anything. I’m saying it out loud. Dad, where were you on the day that Sarah Adams disappeared? Do you have an alibi for your whereabouts? And don’t be mad at me for asking that question. I’m betting Finn’s going to ask you the very same quite soon. You’re the link between the two women, Dad. You.”

  “So are you, son. Lily was your mother, and Sarah your half-sister. Will Finn be questioning you?”

  “Maybe, but the difference is that I didn’t know Sarah was my sister. I wasn’t hiding a big secret. Did Sarah know? I bet she didn’t from your reaction when she came to the house to study with Zack. You went out of your way to discourage any relationship between the two of them. It would have been messy if their kids had been born with webbed toes, I guess. Is that why you kept pushing him toward that bitch Angel? Is her mom the one woman in town that you haven’t fucked?”

  Joel didn’t get a chance to respond. Kim walked into the study, a frown on her expertly made-up face.

  “What’s going on in here?” she demanded. “Why am I hearing the f-word? We don’t talk that way in this house, Cooper. If you’re going to be here—”

  “I’m leaving,” Cooper announced loudly. “You don’t need to worry about any more profanity. As if that’s the biggest problem this family has. Christ, you don’t have a clue. Or maybe you do. Have you known all this time? Did you keep his secrets?”

  “Secrets?” Kim repeated. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ask him,” Cooper said, turning on his heel. “If he won’t tell you, I’m sure you’ll hear it at the hairdresser or the coffee shop tomorrow. Or from the sheriff. He’s going to want some answers. Better think of some lies quick before he gets here. You know, in a lot of ways, I feel sorry for you, Kim.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Kim’s voice was shrill and a bit panicked. Her gaze was darting between Joel and himself, trying to figure out what was happening. Cooper didn’t care to stick around to explain it all. He’d let Daddy try to do that.

  His boots stomping on the front porch steps, he hightailed it out of the house. The whole place made his skin crawl even being in the vicinity. As he climbed into his car, he glanced one more time at the house.

  Emma was standing on the steps, the porch light illuminating her features. Had she heard his argument with his dad? Emma always seemed to know what was going on in that house at all times.

  She sure as hell didn’t look surprised.

  Zack was in a daze. He still couldn’t wrap his head around the news he’d received from Finn. It was as if this was some sort of movie, and he was standing outside of his body watching it all unfold. Nothing in his life had prepared him for this moment. If someone had told him a week ago where he would be standing today, he would have laughed in their face.

  Sarah was his sister.

  Correction, half-sister.

  His dad couldn’t keep it in his pants and had knocked up Sarah’s mom at pretty much the exact same time as his own mother had been pregnant with him. Then he’d kept it a secret. It had only been found out because Lloyd Daniels, Sarah’s stepdad, had made a statement to Finn that Joel Winslow was Sarah’s actual biological dad. He’d said that every month a deposit would be made into their bank account to take care of Sarah as long as the mother, Tracy Daniels, kept quiet about the parentage. Sarah had never known and had thought some other guy was her biological father.

  It was sick and twisted and just the thing that Joel Winslow would do. And now everyone would know. Zack had no doubt his father was going to act like this was no big deal and ignore it like it had never happened. That’s how his dad dealt with situations that he didn’t like - he’d simply pretend it wasn’t real and that everyone else was being emotional.

  It wasn’t normal for Finn to discuss an ongoing case, but he’d said that someone in his office had admitted to talking and it would probably be all over town by tomorrow. He didn’t want Zack to hear it from someone else via the gossip train.

  Zack had a half-sister. Sarah. It explained why his dad had discouraged him when he and Sarah had been working on a group project for school together. Zack hadn’t even been romantically interested in Sarah - she’d been dating Ethan - but Joel had gone on and on about how Angel was the perfect girl for Zack and Sarah wasn’t. It hadn’t made any sense back then, but it did now.

  Lucy had been a rock in the storm since he’d hung up with Finn. She’d held his hand as he’d explained it to her, all the while navigating him to a more secluded spot where half of the town wouldn’t see him. He hadn’t even been thinking about that when he’d talked to Finn, but luckily, she had.

  Finn and Zack had decided to have a more private discussion at the sheriff’s station. It looked like the coroner was almost ready to give their verdict as to cause of death.

  “I can wait here if you like,” Lucy offered, pulling into a parking spot near the sheriff’s station. She’d driven him as he was still upset.

  “I don’t want you sitting in the car,” he replied. “You’re not going to find out anything that’s going to be a secret anyway. The whole town is going to know all about this. Finn said he’s going to fire the assistant that talked about it. I don’t want someone to lose their job.”

  “They should lose their job,” Lucy said. “Yes, we have a gossip problem, but it doesn’t give people free range to talk about private statements in an ongoing investigation. I’m sure they were warned about this kind of thing when they took the job. They broke the rules.”

  “You sound like my sister Frankie. She’s a stickler for rules. Shit, I’m going to have to tell my family. I need to do that right away after we talk to Finn.”

  “He might have already called them, at least Tate or Cooper,” Lucy pointed out. “But yes, you should talk to them. And your father.”

  Finn might have called Joel Winslow as well.

  “The last person I want to talk to is my dad. I’m so fucking angry with him. I don’t even have words to express my disgust for him as a quasi-human being. My expectations for him aren’t even all that high. Just when I think he’s gone as low as he can go, he surprises me with new depths of horrifying behavior. There is simply no way to explain his way out of this one. I can only wonder if Mom knew.”

  “You don’t have to go in there if you don’t want to,” Lucy said. “You can talk to Finn tomorrow or the day after. Nothing is going to change in that span of time. You don’t have to put yourself through this. Let Tate or Cooper do it.”

  Pretending all of this wasn’t happening might work for tonight, but eventually he’d have to face it head-on. He might as well do it now. The one thing he’d learned on Wall Street was that ignoring reality wasn’t a valid long-term strategy.

  “I need to do this,” he said. “I can only imagine how Cooper is going to react when he finds out, if he doesn’t already know. He pretty much hated our dad before this…”

  “I’m also worried about Piper,” Lucy replied. “She’s bitter, as well. And of course, Sam…”

  Shit, Sam. Bless him, he’d tried to be there for their dad, but Joel Winslow didn’t give a tinker’s damn about anyone but himself. From what Zack had seen, his brother Sam knew exactly what a jerk their father was. But that didn’t mean that Sam didn’t have some hope for their parent deep down inside. This would pretty much dash any of that away.

  Hand in hand, they walked into the sheriff’s station. There were several deputies inside and every single head swiveled in their direction as they walked through the door. A hush fell over the room as everyone froze in place. It was awkward and tense, and Zack hated being the center of attention. He glared back at the officers and the poor receptionist at the front desk who was flustered, her face bright red.

  “Hi, we knew you were coming,” she said. “We didn’t think you’d be here so quickly. The sheriff is still meeting with someone. Can you have a seat? He’ll be right with you.”

  Deputy Blake stepped in between them, casting a glare over his shoulder at the younger deputies who immediately went back to work.

  “I’ll handle this, Sherri. Zack and Lucy, why don’t we step over to my desk? I can fill you in on a few details of the case while we wait for the sheriff.”

  That sounded like a good idea because just standing here in the entryway being watched like a television wasn’t pleasant. The other guys might be pretending to be doing something, but Zack could feel their sideways stares.

  “I feel like an animal in the zoo,” he whispered to Lucy as they followed Blake to his desk and sat down in a couple of old metal chairs across from him.

  “Me, too.”

  “Ignore them,” Blake said, scowling at his co-workers again. “They’re acting like children instead of law enforcement professionals. They know better.”

  Lucy glanced over at the receptionist, still wringing her hands at the situation.

  “Is she the one that leaked this?”

  “No, that was the sheriff’s personal assistant, Jill. Finn’s already terminated her employment and sent her home. I’m going to pack up her desk at the end of my shift and drop her things at her house.”

  “She didn’t even get to pack her desk?” Lucy asked.

  “Finn marched her out as soon as she admitted that she’d told Cooper.”

  Zack jumped on that statement.

  “She told Cooper?”

  That meant that his brother had known for hours.

  “She did. Apparently, they were…involved at one point in the past, although I don’t know the details. They’re both divorced and they can do what they want with each other, but from what she admitted, she called Cooper the minute that Lloyd made his statement. She was in the room to take notes. She knows better than that. She was crying when she left but Finn’s a stickler for stuff like this. She won’t get her job back.”

  Ah, one of Cooper’s ladies. That explained a lot. But if Cooper knew then it was a good bet that Tate knew as well. Maybe even Frankie. The only question marks were Sam and Piper.

  And Joel Winslow, of course. Did he know yet?

  Blake picked up a piece of paper and slid it across the desk to Zack and Lucy.

  “Here’s one thing that Jill didn’t get to talk about. We got a preliminary report from the coroner. No one has seen this yet except me and the sheriff. It appears that Sarah died from blunt force trauma to the head. Her skull was fractured. She also had a broken ankle. The coroner cannot be sure that foul play was involved. It could have been a tragic accident where she fell and hit her head, especially because her ankle was also broken. You and I both know how dangerous it is out there on those hiking trails.”

  “I do,” Zack conceded, still taking in the information he’d been given. “Although we don’t know why she was out there to begin with.”

  “That’s true, although Sarah’s mother believes her daughter ran away because of an argument. It’s a strong possibility that she was out there and got into a situation over her head. If the weather was bad, things could have taken a turn quickly. Finn is going to wait for the coroner to make the final call. There’s some toxicology that hasn’t come back yet, but it looks like the official cause of death is likely going to be accidental or unexplained.”

  “I’m still not clear as to why she would go out to the forested area,” Lucy said. “If she was running away from home, wouldn’t she go to a friend’s house or catch a bus out of town? It doesn’t make sense. It was cold at night in October. She had to know she would have died from exposure without any camping gear or at least a campfire.”

  “Her mother thinks that Sarah never intended to spend the night out there. She might have gone there to blow off some steam, and then was trying to hike back home when she had some sort of an accident. Their house back then wasn’t that far from those woods. Most of the kids in town would hang out there in the summer or on weekends.”

  Zack had memories of more than a few keggers there when he was in high school. No one had even thought it was dangerous, but then they hadn’t wandered away by themselves or hiked those trails alone. Still, of all the places Zack would have gone when he was angry and threatening to run away, those woods weren’t it.

  “I was hoping that by telling you this, it would set your mind at ease,” Blake went on. “It was probably just a terrible and tragic accident.”

  “I appreciate you letting us know,” Zack said. “This whole situation is…”

  He simply didn’t have the vocabulary at the moment to express the fuckery that this all was. His emotions were swirling inside of him, one minute angry and the the next disappointed and sad. So many thoughts as to what might have been if this situation had been handled differently.